Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 47

Jim Crow Comparisons Are Not Apt

I watched a conversation on one of the morning political talk shows today that was disturbing.  The discussion was about religious freedom in the aftermath of the same-sex marriage ruling.  Both people, on opposite sides of the marriage issue, agreed with religious freedom to dissent.  But how they defined that was significant.

The SSM advocate heartily agreed that Christians have a right to disagree with the ruling, but he proscribed that freedom to the private realm and church.  Churches have a right to teach what they wish with no repercussions.  Individuals can believe what they want.  But this freedom ended once a Christian enters the public square.  Once a Christian enters the business world, they cannot discriminate.  And he compared the efforts to protect religious freedom in business to Jim Crow laws, exceptions to the law that allowed discrimination and bigotry to continue.

There is no comparison to Jim Crow laws.  So-called Christians who found ways to continue their unjust discrimination despite equal protection laws had no sound basis in the Bible or in Christian history.  Bigotry had no widespread precedent in the teaching of the church in any place or at any time.  Their use of the Bible was the exception, not the rule.  In fact, the abolition movement came from Christian churches ��� and reaches back to the very beginning of Christianity and throughout history.  The civil rights movement came from the churches and challenges those Christians who abused the Bible to excuse their racism and abuse of human beings. I watched the movie Selma a couple of days ago.  It shows how support for civil rights was based in the church and supported across racial and denominational groups.  The bigots were the exception in Christianity, not the rule.

Marriage between a man and a woman, on the other hand, has sound basis in the Bible and has been the universal teaching of the church at all time and in all places.   It has been the rule of teaching.

Comparisons to the civil rights movement have very powerful persuasive power.  But the comparison is unfair.

The First Amendment provides for the religious freedom of individuals to practice their religion in the public square.  It���s an individual right, not just a right given to churches.  It���s a right at all times, not just in private.  This is how the man on TV this morning gave lip service to religious freedom but actually was in favor of restricting it. 

Christian bakers and photographers have a right to follow their religious conscience in their businesses.  They are not required by the Constitution to leave their religion at their front door once they step into their business.  They do not discriminate against individuals of any kind.  They do not want to participate in events that their religion says are wrong.  This has sound basis in Christian teaching and is in no way similar to Jim Crow laws that were hideous violations of the Bible's admonition that all people have equal value.

There's a shift in the way the First Amendment is understood and being applied that actually undermines it.  Rather than protecting religious freedom of individuals, the new interpretation will restrict religious freedom.  Religion is being pushed from the public square and relegated to private, personal belief and churches.  This isn't the robust, free public square our Founders had in mind.

Amazing Grace: A New Musical about John Newton

If you���re not familiar with the story of John Newton (1725-1807), the former slave trader who wrote the song ���Amazing Grace��� after becoming a Christian, it���s a great story. I loved his short spiritual autobiography. I also highly recommend this dramatized version of his story (also available as a set with the stories of William Wilberforce and Olaudah Equiano), which I���ve listened to numerous times.

Last year, I was intrigued to learn that a new musical about John Newton was playing in Chicago. Now it���s made its way to Broadway, and it officially opens July 16th (previews began last week). If you���re anywhere near New York City, the production was gracious enough to give us a discount code (29r7fx) for performances through September 6th. You can download all the info for the special offer here.

Below is a sneak peak for you, and you can visit the website to learn more about the show. I hope it does well!

 

Abusing Freedom

���Freedom is destroyed not only by its retraction; it is also devastated by its abuse.��� ���Ravi Zacharias

Our culture is changing fast. Things that would have seemed absurd to most people���s moral intuitions are now championed. Even some things that still seem odd are accepted because our culture accepted a definition of freedom some time ago that is playing out. 

Radical moral relativism, the view that individuals can define their own morality, has led to radical relativism in general. People think freedom means they can define their own reality. There���s no objective moral standard. And now there���s no objective standard at all that should be imposed on an individual to restrict their freedom of choice. Every individual defines themselves. 

So Bruce Jenner becomes Caitlyn Jenner. A white woman claims she���s black because that���s how she feels. People champion transableism and transspeciesism because they feel inside that they are disabled or cat or rabbit. One feminist said that freedom means the doctor has no right to declare the sex of a baby at birth, despite the body parts that are obvious, because that child should define that for themselves.

There���s nothing objective to constrain us. This has become established in U.S. law already, and it has serious implications. The Declaration of Independence, which is fundamental to all U.S. law including the Constitution, states that our rights are established by God. Because human rights are objective, governments must respect them and cannot violate them. But if there is nothing objective to constrain our freedom, then there���s nothing objective to constrain the government. Our rights become whatever we declare them to be and whatever the government at any time and place declares them to be, changing with the fashions of the day.

This is where we are in our culture now. It���s a very dangerous place to be in. As quickly as the court can bestow a new right, it can be taken away.

It reminds me of Sir Thomas More���s response to his pupil Roper: ���And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you ��� where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast ��� man's laws, not God's ��� and if you cut them down ��� and you're just the man to do it ��� d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?��� It���s na��ve and short-sighted to change the law unmoored from any objective standard because it can be changed in any way possible then. 

The astounding thing about a very few documents in history is that government power was limited because citizens had rights above the government. But when societies no longer recognize this, the governments are back in the position of defining the rights of citizens. As Os Guinness has said, ���When the fashionable new ���right��� trumps the traditional rights, then rights merely arise from power.���

The tragedy of our culture celebrating the new definition of individual freedom is that it has also destroyed what has protected us from tyranny. As Ravi Zacharias pointed out, we���ve abused our freedom and we���ve destroyed it.

Challenge Response: We Don���t Have Those Original "Inerrant" Manuscripts

Here's my response to this week's challenge:

Why Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions Should Continue

Since Time is saying ���Now���s the Time to End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions,��� it���s important we understand why our government has not taxed religious institutions in the past. I recently explained that one reason for non-profit tax exemptions is that ���the power to tax implies the power to destroy��� (McCullough v. Maryland, 1816), and our government has not been given the power to govern religion. But there���s more to it than that.

Al Mohler discussed this issue on Monday���s episode of his podcast, beginning with the charge that the government is wrongly ���subsidizing��� religion through tax exemptions. Not only are tax exemptions not logically a subsidy (after all, it���s not the government���s money the churches are keeping), they���re also not legally a subsidy, as Dr. Mohler explained. From the podcast:

The key statement on these issues was made by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1970, in the case Walz versus Tax Commission of the City of New York; it was a stunning 8-1 decision. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren Burger made very clear that a tax exemption is not a subsidy; that was affirmed by other justices in concurring opinions. A subsidy would be the transfer of tax money to institutions. That���s not what���s going on here���. Rather, the tax exemption is granted with respect to institutions the government does not feel that it has the right to tax on the one hand and on the other hand, institutions that it believes are essential to the Commonwealth and to the commonweal, to the well-functioning of society.

It���s in our best interest to prevent our limited government from taking money away from organizations that are using that money to build up our communities. Local organizations know the people they���re helping, they can give more personalized care with less bureaucratic waste, and those who receive the help do so in the context of relationship, which means gratitude and accountability. Whenever care can be given by the people closest to those who need help, that should be the preferred method of helping, not government: 

One [of] the most basic principles that is deeply embedded in American jurisprudence is the fact that the government cannot do everything. This gets to the fact that mediating institutions including churches, synagogues, temples and other religious institutions fulfill a function the government actually cannot fulfill so well. 

And the value added to communities by churches isn���t merely material help (such as feeding the poor); it���s also intangible goods, such as spiritual support and the strengthening of interpersonal relationships within the community, which works to reinforce good character, support marriages, raise good citizens, increase general happiness, and more. If you doubt the value churches bring to communities, you need only look at the aftermath of recent tragic events in Baltimore and Charleston. What made the difference between rioting and mass hymn singing? The churches. The difference they made and will continue to make in Charleston is the kind of invaluable good the government cannot provide. As Joe Carter said, ���The government doesn���t ���subsidize��� charitable non-profits; charitable non-profits subsidize society.���

There���s yet another reason why the government does not take money from churches:

Again, in his majority opinion Chief Justice Burger wrote,

���The grant of a tax exemption is not sponsorship since the government does not transfer part of its revenue to churches but simply abstains from demanding that the church support the state.���

That is extremely important language. Here Chief Justice Burger was affirming that the most basic fundamental and important reason that the government does not tax churches is that by taxation the church would be required to support the state. Members of synagogues, temples and churches are already taxpaying citizens. It would be a different thing altogether to require the synagogue, the temple or the church actually to fund and support the state. Those who supposedly believe in a separation of church and state have to recognize the dangers inherent in the proposal that the government tax the church���.

Chief Justice Burger and Justice Brennan in writing their opinions in this case understood that taxing churches and religious institutions would inevitably put those churches and institutions in the position of funding the government and would put the state in the position of entangling itself in religious organizations and churches. [Emphasis added.]

Read the rest of what Dr. Mohler had to say here.

The government is prevented from controlling churches by the Constitution. This means it does not do so through taxation. Further, it would not be in our interest as a society for the government to take money away from the work churches do in their communities. The government simply cannot replace it.

Some Christians say they wish churches would lose their tax-exempt status so they could have full free speech rights (i.e., the right to comment on political candidates). But giving up all of the above in exchange for the ability to endorse a candidate seems like a poor trade to me. 

Challenge: We Don���t Have Those Original "Inerrant" Manuscripts

Here���s a challenge from an article titled ���6 Things Christians Should Just Stop Saying.��� Steve McSwain says, ���Christians must stop saying���the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God���:

It isn't inerrant and not likely even in the "original manuscripts." But then, I cannot say that with absolute certainty, anymore than anyone else can either.

Why? Because no such "original" manuscripts even exists. That's like saying, "We believe there are aliens on other planets!"

Is it meaningless to say the original documents were inerrant? If not, why not? Tell us how you would respond to this challenge in the comments below, then we���ll hear Alan���s response on Thursday.

[Update: View Alan's video response. Explore past challenges here and here.]

Did God Choose Us before We Repented?

Greg explains how God's choice and our repentance work together.

Advice from Chesterton: Don���t Take Down the Fence until You Know Why It���s There

If there���s one thing I���ve learned in the past few days, it���s this: Most people���religious or otherwise���have no idea what marriage is, why it exists, and what we need it for. And what���s worse, they have no idea they have no idea.

Some sound advice from G.K. Chesterton:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ���I don���t see the use of this; let us clear it away.��� To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ���If you don���t see the use of it, I certainly won���t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.���

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

Again I point you to this collection of resources for finding out why the fence has been there for millennia. I also point you to these:

Understand the Same-Sex Marriage Issue
Is Same-Sex Marriage a Good Policy Decision?
What Is Marriage?
Defending Marriage

Justice Kennedy���s Arguments for Polygamy and Polyamory

From Justice Kennedy���s majority opinion:

As all parties agree, many [polygamous and polyamorous groups] provide loving and nurturing homes to their children, whether biological or adopted. And hundreds of thousands of children are presently being raised by such [groups]. 

Excluding [polygamous and polyamorous groups] from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of [polygamous and polyamorous groups].

[Polygamous and polyamorous groups] are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex [and same-sex] couples would deem intolerable in their own lives. As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that [those with a polygamous or polyamorous orientation] are unequal in important respects. It demeans [those with a polygamous or polyamorous orientation] for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation���s society. [Polygamous and polyamorous groups], too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning.

The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex [and same-sex] couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest. With that knowledge must come the recognition that laws excluding [polygamous and polyamorous groups] from the marriage right impose stigma and injury of the kind prohibited by our basic charter.

These considerations lead to the conclusion that the right to marry [whomever one wishes to marry] is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment [polygamous and polyamorous groups] may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that [polygamous and polyamorous groups] may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization���s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Now tell me, on the basis of the reasons given, why not?

Marriage Decision Is a ���Totalitarian Impulse to Redefine Reality���

The Supreme Court decision yesterday won���t just affect marriage. Giving the government the power to redefine a pre-political institution changes the relationship of the government to all of our rights. As Jay Richards says in ���Why a Limited Government Must Recognize Natural Marriage,��� ���You can���t make war on the natural law and then appeal to it for help.���

The arguments for redefining marriage have been all about individual rights, but the move would actually undermine the foundation of individual rights. Here���s why. A limited government doesn���t try to redefine reality as the Orwellian governments of the 20th century did (including the fictional government of George Orwell���s 1984). A limited government recognizes and defends realities outside its jurisdiction. Our government doesn���t bestow rights on us as individuals. We get our rights from God. A just and limited state simply recognizes and protects this pre-political reality. But a government that gets in the habit of ignoring other pre-political realities is primed to ignore the reality of unalienable human rights.

The individual and his inherent rights are a pre-political reality. Marriage is another. The institution of marriage transcends every political system���.

Appealing to nature and nature���s God to defend individual rights and equality, which most cultures have not recognized, while ignoring the universal testimony of nature and culture on marriage, is like sawing off the branch you���re sitting on. Put another way, you can���t make war on the natural law and then appeal to it for help.

So, just as government can���t redefine our rights as individuals made in the image of God, it has no authority to redefine marriage. Communism was totalitarian because it tried to redefine the individual, to create a new ���Communist Man.��� We���re now struggling with another totalitarian impulse to redefine reality.��� If the state can redefine a universal institution rooted in human nature, what can���t it redefine?

Invoking a right doesn���t create a right. Rights come from our nature, from reality, from the way things are. In the case of marriage, we are dealing with a biological reality first and foremost. A government that puts itself in charge of redefining such things is a menace to human rights and human institutions.

Make no mistake, the right on which the Supreme Court is basing its decision is not a natural right to equal protection under the law (no one has ever been denied a marriage license because of his sexual orientation); it���s a right to make marriage whatever we wish it to be���a right they���ve created on their own. As Justice Roberts said, ���The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage.��� The Supreme Court yesterday trampled a pre-political reality in order to create a new ���right��� that five of the nine justices personally prefer. Today, they happen to prefer having two-person marriage. But once the two complementary sexes of spouses are irrelevant, there���s no principled reason to limit the number of spouses to two.

Indeed, there are no limits at all on a government that isn���t bound to respect and submit to realities outside of itself. We���ll just have to wait and see where five justices��� future personal whims take us.